I have just got a violin for my birthday, and my mom is making me have lessons in about a month, but I am having real trouble producing a sound on the violin. Sometimes I can get a really good sounding, strong note, but that is very rare. I just tend to get a sound of the bow pushing against the string, not of the note. Is this a problem with the actual violin or me? As last year I had a go on my friend`s violin and I could easily produce a sound. Please help me!!

Have you put a lot of rosin on the bow, I mean a lot? if not, that`s the place to start.

Liz

I agree with Liz, it sounds like you haven`t put any rosin on the bow. Without rosin, there`s no friction so the bowhair just slides over the strings.

I had this problem recently as I hadn`t rosined for a while. Pushing harder, you actually stretch the string a little as you play, and that puts the note out of tune.

Maybe, just maybe, too much rosin. That makes the bow slip right across the string.

I`ve never heard of that. You`d need to have clouds of rosin everywhere for that to be an issue surely?

Liz

Slipping acorss the string is usually to LITTLE rosin. If the bow is new, go in front of your TV, watch a 1/2 hr program while you rosin.
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Now you have enough rosin :D

If you have powdery rosin and you do that ^, then you`ll have clouds of rosin everywhere.

The rosin shouldn`t be too powedery, if you`d got like a lump of it in a cloth. If it`s a new bow then yeah, just put some rosin on, that`ll be it.

If its a new bow, rosin-ing it heavily for the first time isnt that bad. Just shake the bow (CAREFUL, not to hard; we dont want to BREAK the bow ) so the dust comes off naturally.

rosin helps alot for me when i use it on the violin but you would need to clean it after you play it so the rosin dust dose not build up!!!!!! and i am doing a science fair project on the feason why rosin helps the sound get lowder so if any one could help me that woul;d be great!!!!

Hi Laura,

The vibration of a bowed string is caused by a "catch-slip-catch-slip" process being repeated thousands of times a second as the bowhair contacts the string.

The rosin makes the bowhair stickier, so the catch is a more significant catch, pulling the string sideways more and causing more tension, before allowing it to slip and vibrate.

An unrosined bow will hardly catch the string at all, so any vibration caused is very small, and the sound produced very quiet.

So many times have we seen this on a thread...So pls. ROSIN yr bow pp, Pls. rosin it well enough.

You may not have enough rosin, or too much.